


Gila

by ronsparkyspeirs



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Logan Comes Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 18:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5881252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronsparkyspeirs/pseuds/ronsparkyspeirs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan's lost his wife and Marie's a widow. A little fic set ten years after the first movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gila

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Burn It Down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5088404) by [lachlanrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lachlanrose/pseuds/lachlanrose). 



> inspired by Lachlanrose's 'Burn It Down' fic, it really has nothing to do with that fic except for the fact that I've been reading it and I've finally written some Logan/Marie.

He hasn't seen her in a decade, since she was more than barely a child, he’d gone to Japan, found a part of him that was missing and she had grown up. Took the cure and before he left she had expressed some kind of sentiment towards him, in no explicit terms she had told him that if he wanted her, she would wait for him. But Logan was selfish when it came to that, there was another woman and he’d been so blind. He was scared and feeling like he was being cornered he made sure to cruelly snatch her dreams of a life with him. 

 

“I could never love you, kid,” he’d said, “not like that.” 

 

And before him she had aged a millennium, her shoulders slumping and that light in her eyes that he loved so much, dimming like an old light bulb. What is ten years to a man like him? A blink of an eye, a marriage and a dead child. 

 

But to her? It meant college, and finding out the cure wasn't permanent, it meant a long grueling year where she isolated herself and learned to control her power, wield it like a weapon or use it like a shield. Ten long years meant that she had found a man, made him her husband, ten years meant she was a widow by twenty-eight. 

 

He’s been back at the mansion for seven months when Ororo finally mentions her, she's coming back after her mourning period, wants to teach and be whole again, or at least try. Logan feels his chest tighten because he doesn't know how he feels about seeing her again, he doesn't know how either of them will react. He misses that Mississippi girl something fierce, the one that climbed in his truck and sassed the living daylights outta him, but even he knows that she's gone. 

 

Two weeks later he hears a commotion coming from the front entrance, kids cheering and asking questions, Ororo’s soft voice, Jubilee’s shriek of delight, she's back. And because Logan always faces things head on he makes his way down the stairs and pauses halfway down, her hair is longer, reaching her waist, but still shiny and full. Her face is more angular, but her lips are still plush, she's lost weight and he doesn't know if he should attribute it to the fact that she's no longer a teenager or the fact that her husband died just eight months ago. 

 

She doesn't look at him. She smiles at everyone around her and he's so pleased she never got that little gap between her teeth fixed. He’ll let her catch up with everyone first, so he makes his way back up his room, unaware of the brown eyes staring at his back. 

 

It's three in the morning and Logan can't sleep, with a huff he stands from his bed and makes his way towards the kitchen, intent on drinking a beer or five. He’s not expecting to see her there, sat in a stool at the island, digging a spoon in a carton of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. 

 

“Marie,” he says, softly, but the sound still startles her. 

 

“Christ!” she curses, dropping her spoon on the counter top. 

 

She's wearing a mans t-shirt, a logo with a shipbuilding company on the front, her legs bare and a pair of fuzzy slippers. She's always been beautiful. 

 

Her brown eyes finally glance at him, and she gives him a little head tilt, like she doesn't know what to say, which is odd because he's never known her to be at a loss for words. “How are you?” he asks, and cringes at how raspy his voice sounds, not soothing like he was aiming for. 

 

She shrugs, “Some days are good, some days aren't so good.” 

 

He nods, because out of anyone he probably can understand that the best, “Heard you got hitched,” she tells him, but he doesn't want to talk about that. 

 

So he answers with a question of his own, “When did you--?” he says, pointing towards the delicate band of gold she still wears on her finger. 

 

“I was twenty three,” she responds, wistfully. 

 

“And him?” 

 

She grins at that, long and slow, “Thirty six.” 

 

Logan grunts, she always had a thing for the older ones. 

 

“He was your type, y’know?” Marie says, and he's not sure where this is going and his gut says  _ get the fuck out of dodge _ but Logan’s always been hard headed when it comes to her. 

 

“Yeah?” 

 

“Yep, big thighs, big arms…” she turns to look at him and he can feel her words coming like a physical punch, except this is one he can't dodge, “but his eyes were soft when he looked at me.”  

 

She gives him a watery smile, “God, when he looked at me,” he face falls with grief and she shakes her head. 

 

Logan feels guilt. He feels it eating away at his insides because maybe if he hadn't been such a sad asshole he could have come back, made a life with her of some kind, instead of listening to her cry about the dead husband that reminded her of him. Hell, he ain't that much better either, running halfway around the world to marry a woman with her name. He watches as she breaks in front of him, tears spilling from those pretty eyes, her face furrowed in grief, she's not silent like she’d been on the train; instead hiccuping sobs spill from her pretty lips that feel like a knife to the chest. 

 

Slowly she starts quieting, looking startled as she sees him still there, watching and not saying a damned thing. “I--I wish things had been different,” Marie says, and Logan's not sure if she means her husband or him. 

 

She sighs, a heavy burdened sound that escapes her lips, “But it wasn't ever going to be like that with us, was it?” 

 

Logan can feel his eyes widening, shock on his face because she came out swinging and it doesn't look like she's pulling any punches. Marie lets out a laugh, “I loved him, don't get me wrong, I never thought I would ever love someone that way,” she looks at him and sees what her husband probably saw each morning he woke with her at his side, adoration and respect, and tenderness that leaves Logan reeling, “but, part of me always wondered what it would have been like with us,” she finishes. 

 

“Me too,” he responds, and Marie gives him a shaky smile. She stands from her seat and walks towards him, hips swaying and milky thighs on display, she rests a hand on his bearded cheek and caresses him with her thumb. 

 

“Once upon a time,” she says, quietly, and then she walks away, leaving him standing like an idiot in a darkened kitchen. 

 

Three days pass by before he sees her again. Playing outside with some of the younger kids, running out of breath and skin smelling like sunshine; he watches her and wonders if her belly was ever rounded with child, if she ever longed to cradle a little bundle within her arms. She’d make a terrific mom, that's for sure. And as if she senses his eyes on her, she turns her gaze towards him, and Logan waits as she excuses herself from the gaggle of kindergartners, hears their whines and watches as they pout. 

 

“You're good with them,” he tells her once Marie reaches him, and she shrugs in response. 

 

“I’m the only one that can keep up with them,” she tells him, a wry grin on her face. 

 

And again Logan's thoughts drift to her with child,  _ his  _ child. A dark haired baby with his eyes and her nose, a little spitfire that they would let run wild. He jolts with the thought, aware that he's clearly got a loose screw in the head. He takes a cigar from his shirt pocket and bites the tip off, “You ever think about it?” he asks, gesturing towards the kids now playing a ‘powers allowed’ game of tag. 

 

“Havin’ a baby?” 

 

He nods. 

 

“I was gonna wait till I was thirty,” she smiles ruefully, “if I had known how this was gonna play out,” she shrugs, “maybe I wouldn't have waited.” 

 

Logan doesn't fail to notice how she doesn't ask about him, she probably already knows, kid had always been too smart for her own good. He looks her over and the way the sunlight hits her hair, it makes it look like it's on fire, deep browns and rich reds, illuminating her pale skin.  _ What the fuck is he doing.  _

 

He reaches a hand and brushes a strand of hair away from her face, it reminds him of the way he touched her the first time he left. Back when she'd still been innocent and the world hadn't had her way with sweet, trusting, Marie. She surprises him by leaning towards him, wrapping her arms around his waist, Logan lets his hands linger above her shoulders for a second before he wraps his own arms around her. She's pliant and warm, nuzzling into his chest when he squeezes her against himself, she lets out a contented sigh and Logan purses his lips, “I ain't your father, kid,” he tells her, and he feels like a complete asshole when she leans back with tears in her eyes. 

 

“I know,” she whispers. 

 

She turns away from him and she's like smoke dissipating, gone with only the sensation left behind. 

 

He runs to the Northern Territories the very next day. He needs space and  _ she  _ needs space, because he can't think when she's around him. His wife and child had been dead for little over a year and her own husband had been laid to rest nine months ago, they can't go falling back to their played out routine of ‘roughneck and pretty little teenage girl.’ For one, she ain't a teenager anymore, and he's not the hard headed prick he used to be, he can give her what she wants, be there for her but she needs to heal over first. 

 

Logan knows that she loved her husband, he felt it when she spoke of him, but hell, wasn't she the one that said that he’d been a good imitation of Logan? She was in love with him and he set her aside because he was in love with a dying woman, and then he went seeking for something she was already giving freely. Both of them had fucked up, being cowards with their emotions, pride and heartbreak, interlaced in a way that Logan’s not sure can ever be fixed. 

 

But Marie’s always been the braver of the two, climbing into his truck like she hadn't just watched claws come out of his hands. He’s sitting in the only bar within a fifty mile radius when she walks in, smelling like honeysuckle and Sunday morning sunshine. He knocks back his whiskey as she slides into the bar stool next to his, “You gonna stay up here forever?” she asks. 

 

And Logan grins because it's only been a week, “Hasn't been that long,” he tells her. 

 

“Long enough,” she bites back. 

 

He sighs deeply, “What now?” 

 

Marie takes his hand and clasps it with both of her own, stroking the backs of his knuckles, “Whatever we want,” she tells him, “just, together now, instead of with different people or at opposite ends of the world.” 

 

Logan shivers at her words, she's making him a promise, like the one he made back in that train. She doesn't have to say it but Logan knows, forever, or as long as she’ll have him. He feels tears burning behind his eyes that he has to sniffle back and wipe away with the back of his other hand. 

 

“Promise?” he asks her. 

  
And Marie lets out a full throated laugh, her eyes sparkle and she doesn't respond but he knows, he's always known. 


End file.
